The Digital Newsstand

The New York Times reported recently that five major publishers of newspapers and magazines -- Time Inc., Conde Nast, the Hearst Corporation, Meredith and the News Corporation -- are joining together to build a new distribution platform, a digital newsstand. This would conceivably be akin to the iTunes store in terms of selling and distribution.

Interestingly, this plan is being devised for a reading device that doesn't yet exist. Their plan isn't to get you their content on your current iPhone, Droid, or Kindle. No, they're thinking of an entirely new device (Apple tablet, anyone?) that would allow a much larger and more colorful experience with the magazines. It would also add a great deal of interactivity with the content.

Imagine "reading" an article, clicking on a photo of a certain player to get his or his team's stats, or flipping through multiple photos -- and videos -- of an article, rather than just the one that fits on the printed page. Exciting stuff. I applaud them for taking this leap, even if it is many years (too?) late. In an ideal world, this digital newsstand would be open 24/7 and all over the world, much like the Kindle has access to magazine and newspaper content.

They have a pretty interesting video that demonstrates the concept: